Cold Feet
by go-gettem-bobcatt
Summary: I was born with cold feet. You are the only person whose been able to light them on fire. LoVe future fic looking at the past...  A little story about how Logan has warmed up Veronica's heart and helped her trust over the years


**This is my first story so judge lightly please...this idea kind of just came to me and I wrote it in two days so it's not amazing. I would really enjoy reviews though...even if they aren't great as long as they're not rude I would really appreciate them! Thanks and I hope you like it.**

**Theme: Veronica was born with cold feet...over the years Logan has warmed them up and lit them on fire (It's Logan and Veronica because they're the only couple that has ever made sense and they are _clearly_ meant for each other)**

Seven years ago, had you asked me for one absolute in this universe, it would be that I would always be friends with Lilly Kane. Back then, I was naïve enough to believe that Lilly would include all of the "Fab Four," as she had branded us. Duncan and I were going to get married (much to the disappointment of Celeste) and have the house with a picket fence and 2.5 kids. Now I know that that wasn't me simply being naïve; it was me fooling myself. I still knew it would never be Duncan and me. He was too nice and simple and the perfect guy for who I wanted desperately to be…and who Lilly was trying to dispose of. The real me was there, screaming to get out and warn the girl I was being to not get too hopeful. The me that I had suppressed had noticed the signs in my mom's behavior lately (it didn't take much) and was jaded from way before anything else happened. But it took much more than Lilly's magic to get the real me to break from my cages.

Even then I knew that Lilly was too bright for Logan. I knew Lilly would never burn out (she wouldn't be Lilly if she did) but I did see her eventually finding someone with just as large a shine as her to challenge her and keep her in check. I always figured that this guy would slowly start to replace Logan although I hoped we could just expand to the Fab Five. Over the years it had added on to Lilly and me with Logan and Duncan with Duncan and me and Lilly and Logan. Lilly and Duncan were obviously tied. They had one of the strongest sibling bonds I think I've seen to this day. It was only right that Logan and I filled in the gap and became friends too. And not just, "Oh I talk to him when I see him…" friends, but the real, "He's who I call when I'm bored and I enjoy being with just him," friends.

It was seven years ago that I learned that Logan truly was as bright as Lilly, but for a completely different reason. The four of us had been eating at the Hut when the Kane's were whisked away by an incredibly "regretful" Celeste. After saying our goodbyes to the Kane siblings, the inevitable awkward silence settled between us. I almost jumped after the extreme silence when he suggested that we go hang out at the beach. I agreed and we hopped in his XTerra and had our feet in the waves before I knew it. After walking for a while, and a sufficient amount of dunking and splash fights, we just sat on the sand looking out at the foamy blue-green waves crash against the shore. I cast a sideways glance at him just in time to witness the ways his eyes had foamed over to mirror the waves as he simply zoned out in what I can only describe as pure contentedness. I asked him why he liked the ocean so much and got the expected witty answer at first, "It's _the_ place to find hot babes…aduh!" he said with his signature smirk. After a little prying from Veronica Mars extraordinaire, he told me of how the ocean was, "the only place where you be alone—and I mean _really_ alone – alone from anyone or anything that's gone wrong. It's like the best friend that never goes on vacation." And in this moment, as he went on about his love for the ocean, I saw in his eyes a fire that burned so bright it warmed me up all the way to my core…even the real me hidden inside. At that moment, some of the ice began to chip away.

Six years ago, had you asked me for one absolute, it would have been that I'm never going to get married. After all these cases of unfaithful spouses, abusive parents and untrustworthy people, I had almost lost hope in society. The only thing that gave me an inkling of hope beyond the dysfunction of Neptune was my dad. He was the model figure in my life, to which I compared everyone…leading to a disappointment in all of the people around me. Even my own mother had disappointed me. Waking up to find nothing but a music box and a note? Really, Mom? That morning was one of the hardest days of my life…it was the second hammer strike to the wall enclosing the real vulnerable, fierce and jaded Veronica (the first being Lilly's death of course).

The alternative answer to that question might possibly have been that I hate Logan Echolls, with a burning passion. But the thing is…I don't think I ever really hated him. Sure he was a huge jackass but that was his way of dealing with it. And he did it with the same ferocity and passion as he had loved Lilly just months before…and the same conviction with which he had talked about the beach before. Seeing that the look in his eyes as he put me down had that same fire in it as when he was talking about the solace brought on by the waves of the ocean – Only this time, the fire wasn't expanding throughout his eyes so much as covering up the sorrow and defenselessness behind them – I knew that through it all, he never hated me either. And that dedication warmed by feet a little bit more.

If you had asked senior year, I would have said that nothing is absolute. In the span of three years, I had gone from the top of the world to 6 feet below the bottom to climbing my way back up. If anything, I had come to grips with the fact that anything could change really in the blink of an eye (not to be too clichéd).

The summer before that year, I had immersed myself in the fire that was Logan Echolls. I had forgiven but never forgotten the intensity with which he shoved that flame in my face the year before but I had learned to move on. That fire, however, was becoming more and more of a mask than a passion. Behind it lied a very broken and extremely scarred little boy. The few times he let down his walls and allowed me to see that little boy were some of the hardest nights of my life.

One day, I had finally allowed my curiosity about the things Trina had said the year before to get the better of me. I prodded him gently at first and watched as he shared story after story as if he weren't a part of it. He spoke so detachedly that it was as if Aaron had never lay a hand on him, only portrayed it in a movie. To thank him for opening up to me in the way that I was so incredibly incapable of doing, I gave him a soft kiss that seemed to say everything. It told him how sorry I was. Sorry that it had happened, that I hadn't noticed, that he'd had to go through it alone. And mostly it told him that it was over. I was there now and I wouldn't ever be leaving. As he thanked me, I saw the fire turn from a vicious and brutal flame into a subdued and gentle burning. The gratitude in his eyes warmed my cold feet a little bit more. The least I could do was to melt away some of his pain so I lifted his shirt and kissed a soft caring kiss on each individual scar. With each kiss, his fire molded into a passionate strong fire more and more.

Of course the day did come when I left him. But it wasn't _because_ of him. It was _for_ him. And, ok, maybe a little bit for me too. But he didn't see that, with every taunt and act of revenge, his fire was changing from a supportive flame to a ravaging wildfire. One day, his brightness was going to be matched and he would end up just like Lilly. And I couldn't handle that. I broke up with him for his safety. But he couldn't see that. And in that one moment the flame melted away revealing the frigid scared little boy hiding inside once again as he instinctively swung his arm out smashing the lamp against the wall. When my dad came in and yelled at him, all I could see, over the blinding fear for his safety, was the devastating hurt in his eyes. To think that a man that he had always admired could believe for one second that he was at all capable of harming a single piece of me had completely torn him up. He didn't speak to me for days, replacing the cold in my untrusting and unsure feet.

Then just a few months later, in his drunken stupor, he had managed to melt away another doubtful layer from my frozen feet. The words he said still resonate with me to this day. "Epic…spanning years and continents, lives ruined, blood shed." After I asked if a relationship should really be that hard he easily replied that no one wrote songs about the ones that come easy. It was all becoming too much for me, I still had icy layers of trust issues and hurt covering the feet of myself to get in this deep. So I did what I had always did, I ran. But as I ran I realized that he was right. Every channel I flipped to was a song about love…and none of it had come easy. That's when I realized that, while I may not want to bury myself in his arms immediately, I didn't want him to close them. But, of course, I took too long and the next morning, the one guy who was beginning to win my trust and melt away my doubt already had company. Seeing his face, how he didn't remember a word of the speech that had so deeply affected me hurt more than I can possibly say.

On the top of the Neptune Grande, I realized everything had come full circle. What started with me coming to see Duncan after the departure of the one girl linking us, to me staying out far past curfew to be with the boy whose fire lit my world, to running away from that same fire and missing my chance to get warmed. After all of that, all I had put him through, he was still there for me when I really needed it the most. As all of it clicked and I realized that Beav—Cassidy had been the one to do all of those things…raped me…killed my father…I knew my phone would be my only chance of survival and I knew that I could absolutely count on Logan to come to my rescue…again. And he didn't fail me. Seeing how quickly he thought about how I would feel if I shot Cassidy made me realize how well he really knew me. And the look in his eyes when Cassidy asked why he shouldn't jump…the pure hatred for what he had done (part of me likes to think it was what he had done to me) and the lack of response, showed just how much he cared. That was the first time my cold feet were really defrosted. Not completely but now they were only coated in water. Now all they needed was time.

Of course that time had its interruptions. The defrost had begun when I saw how he cared for me even when we weren't together. It had been almost reversed when I discovered that he had been able, even if he was shitfaced, to sleep with Madison Sinclair had torn me up inside. All I had in my head were scenarios of the two of them going at it. The thought that really drove me was how happy I'm sure it made her. Even if she hadn't have wanted Logan to begin with I'm sure it delighted her to no end to imagine what this would do to me. She probably was picturing that moment in the lingerie store the whole time. I bet nobody wrote slut on her car the next morning. And I bet she had full recollection of the event. And how happy she would be to know how much time I spent thinking about it.

Even from the moment that I said he was out of my life, I knew his speech was still true. This was just another bump in the road of our epic love story. Seeing how he was there for me again after I had hurt him proved that he still cared just as much as I did. Despite what I might say, seeing him go after Gorya (even after being warned of his connections) really heated me up. I saw that fire return that I hadn't seen in so long and it exploded in his eyes. It reflected all his pain of knowing what his father had done to Lilly and tried to do to me, hearing what Cassidy had done to me and his pain at hearing how much I wanted to trust Piz with the video. All of the ways he ever thought someone had hurt me, and that I had hurt him, shone through as he threw punch after punch. As Piz walked in after, the look in his eyes told me that he knew we were over also. It always has been and always would be Logan as far as I'm concerned. After all, no one writes songs about the ones that come easy.

"Logan, everything you do, you do with a fire and a passion unmatched by anyone I've ever met. When you hate, you hate with everything in you. After everything that's happened in your life, you have every right to hate so many people and see the world as such a dark and cruel place. Somehow, you manage to find a way to use that power and love with everything in you. You are so trusting and willing to accept mistakes and move forward. You dive in head first all the way to the deep end of things immediately. This passion is what I love most about you and it is what I hope will rub off on me in the years that I know we will spend together.

So when you asked me this morning if I had cold feet…Logan, I was born with cold feet. I have always been nervous and doubtful and I've never really felt absolutely sure about any emotional decision. I've thought that I was really in things before and my feet went from frozen to a little below average. You and your intense passion are the only person who has ever managed to take my cold feet and not only warm them…but light them completely on fire. So no Logan, I don't have cold feet. Not anymore. You and your love are all I need for my feet to be warm and happy, and all I ever want is to see you shine with that spark inside you that's always been brighter than anyone around you.

I love you and cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with you.

I do."


End file.
